I watched the news all last week hoping to conceive a positive message for Labor Day weekend that could follow the Afghanistan debacle that prompted my August 27 message. Alas, I found no good news — especially for dealing with existential threats to our electric power grid.
For the most comprehensive report on our appalling status in a dangerous world, I still strongly recommend Victor Davis Hanson’s August 29, 2021 “Afghan Nightmare: Tanks for Nothing.”
He described in comprehensive — though abbreviated, vivid prose — how most of the world probably perceives America’s shameful leadership and performance that left hundreds of Americans and many more of our allies behind (still today). And President Biden called our efforts that abandoned them an “extraordinary success?”
Since then, numerous news reports have made clear that we left behind over a hundred Americans and many more numerous Afghani allies — now at life-threatening risk from the Sharia dedicated Taliban and its allies. By no measure I can conceive would that failure be called as extraordinary success.
Then on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, provided more bad news: After abandoning Americans and our allies and leaving them behind, Washington was leaving Americans and our allies on six commercial planes stranded in Afghanistan. Rep. McCaul worried that this condition was a Taliban Hostage condition.
No good news here — and none promised for the near future. So, how bad could it get — as we approach the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001?
With that sobering thought in mind, I sought without success recognition of the importance of our vulnerable electric grid from reports on Ida, the disastrous hurricane that left at least 58 people dead nationwide and produced billions of dollars in damages stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.
That event spawned new warnings from scientists and elected officials that climate change has increased the risks of powerful natural disasters.
Climate Change!!! How about natural and manmade EMP? Many lights are still out. Hello???
At least, I thought the loss of the Gulf Coast electric grid should have led to a recognition of the importance of losing the grid indefinitely — also from a Natural cause that will for certain will occur one day — from the Sun, as I discussed on May 27, 2021.
Or from a direct attack if Russia, China, North Korea or Iran detonates nuclear weapons at high altitude over the United States to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that blacks out our electric grid indefinitely.
As I have emphasized numerus times, including in my last message, they all include EMP in their military doctrine as the most horrific cyberattack strategy.
Our alleged leaders not only ignore this reality, they continue not to recognize that obtaining this protection is affordable and well-known.
As I discussed on August 19, the Senate and House continues to ignore that reality while negotiating on spending trillions on so-called social infrastructure.
They are ignoring an all too real threat to all we hold dear.
Too bad, so sad.
Hope you enjoyed Labor Day ... and will think about this urgent challenge ...
Ambassador Henry F. (Hank) Cooper, Chairman of High Frontier and an acknowledged expert on strategic and space national security issues, was President Ronald Reagan's Chief Negotiator at the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Director during the George H.W. Bush administration. Read Ambassador Cooper's Reports — More Here.
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